Most social scientists have taken a rather harsh and critical view of Brazil’s economic performance under the military regimes. Although these critics concede that the Brazilian economy grew at an impressive rate, particularly during the “economic miracle” period from 1967 to 1973, they argue that this growth was highly inequitable. Samuel Morley challenges this majority view, contending that the negative assessment of the critics, both as to the causes of rising inequality and its meaning in a dynamic growing economy, is misleading.
Morley’s central thesis is stated in his preface: “Something very dynamic occurred in Brazil’s growth process, which increased employment, opened up job opportunities, and allowed for substantial upward mobility all across the income pyramid” (p. xiv). This key finding, well argued and buttressed by quantitative data and analysis (chapters 4 and 5), is a significant contribution to Brazil’s recent economic history. Morley’s novel approach is to focus on the upward mobility of what he calls the “base-poor,” which include the new entrants who find their first job at the bottom of the income pyramid and rural migrants. “Those at the bottom,” he writes, “have a good chance of making fairly significant intergenerational and intragenerational improvements” (p. 107). Significantly, the top occupational classes in 1973 were, to a surprising extent, composed of sons from families further down the pyramid. When the poor are not a constant group, as is true of Brazil, static inequality comparisons “will not be very good indicators of lifetime inequality, nor will they be very good proxies for the level of discontent” (p. 109). How do Brazilians feel about their situation? Public opinion polls and surveys conducted during the 1970s give an essentially optimistic answer to that question.
Historians will be particularly interested in the author’s comparison of Brazil with the even more impressive “economic miracles” of Korea and Taiwan (chapter 11). In contrast to Brazil, the resource-poor East Asian countries achieved very rapid economic growth with rising income equality. Unlike the Brazilian case, the rural labor surplus was quickly eliminated in Korea and Taiwan, with positive effects on the wages of the unskilled. Morley attributes the disappearance of the labor surpluses to basic land reform (i.e., land to the tiller) and labor-intensive industrialization strategies in the Asian countries.
This work can be faulted on two counts. Although the author provides a detailed study of Brazilian labor markets, including the importance of interregional labor migration, he largely ignores the significance of the population factor. (As an example, official measures designed to reduce human fertility contributed notably to rising income equity in Korea and Taiwan.) Second, although the Brazilian authoritarian regimes professed a faith in private enterprise, they in fact presided over the creation of hundreds of public enterprises (estatais). What impact did this burgeoning state enterprise sector have on the distribution of income?
Criticisms aside, this well-crafted volume breaks new ground in the analysis and interpretation of Brazil’s economic transformation during the past two decades.
